The United States Men’s National Soccer Team will be in Brazil this June for the World Cup, but “Captain America” himself, L.A. Galaxy forward Landon Donovan, will not be with them.

Donovan, as you might’ve heard via the World Wide Net’s id, Twitter, was not among the 23 players selected by head coach Juergen Klinsmann to represent the Stars And Stripes after the German announced his final roster selection this afternoon. That’s a damn shame, too: Donovan is the most-capped player of the guys who made the U.S. World Cup camp with 156 appearances and the national team’s all-time leading scorer with 57 tallies, which would’ve given the team a (understatement/cliche alert) proven leader.

In his place (and we’ll go based off wingers and forwards here) Klinsmann selected young guns like Jozy Altidore [Ed. note: really?], Aron Johannsson, and Julian Green, as well as older dudes Chris Wondolowski and Clint Dempsey.

This would’ve been Donovan’s fourth World Cup appearance in a row if he had made it, so excuse USMNT fans for thinking that the 32-year-old was going to be anywhere but Brazil next month. However, with the beauty of hindsight over the past year, fans and pundits alike could’ve seen it coming. Here are five reasons why.

1. Age, Dawg.

Donovan’s 32 years old, which isn’t dinosaur-status, as the inclusion of also-32-years-old Besiktas central midfielder Jermaine Jones proves. But Klinsmann’s apparently thinking ahead for the 2018 World Cup, which he and the U.S. Soccer Federation believe he’ll be around for. Take a look at some of the guys included on the rosters and it’s clear Klinsmann’s thinking young: 18-year-old Green, 20-year-old DeAndre Yedlin, 23-year-olds Johannsson and Mix Diskerud. And at a position that requires flash and pace against teams like Portugal, Germany and Ghana, Donovan just wasn’t going to cut it, perhaps because…

2. Recent Form

Over the past two seasons, Donovan’s own performance has started to decline from its peak. While he did win the MVP award for the USMNT at last summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, leading a young B-team-esque squad, his total goals for a Galaxy season have declined since 2011, and he has none so far this season (although, he does have two assists). Granted, Jozy Altidore’s been nothing more than ho-hum his entire time in Europe, but, again, Klinsmann’s going to settle with youth over Landy’s aging legs.

3. His And Klinsmann’s Relationship

Donovan expressed after the 2012 season that he needed to take a break from his career to rest and get his mind right. Klinsmann apparently, maybe didn’t approve of Donovan’s sabbatical through the spring of 2013–since he believes his American players need to be bettering their careers 24/7–and their relationship has been chilly since.

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4. The U.S. Doesn’t Need His Leadership Anymore

The U.S. managers that Donovan first played under were Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley, two Americans who more or less utilized a “good ol’ boys” system of selecting players–that is, they stuck with whom they knew and could rely on. Under both managers (Arena is also now Donovan’s coach at the Galaxy), Donovan was the team’s nucleus, lynchpin and backbone. He really could do no wrong. But Klinsmann’s youth-based revolution, his relationship with Donovan and Donovan’s absence for several months last year meant the team had to move on from surrounding itself around Donovan.

And if you take a look at the players whom Klinsmann selected, you’ll notice that five (Fabian Johnson, Green, Chandler, Jones and Brooks) are German-born American converts and two (Johannsson and Diskerud) are foreign-born American converts from recent years. Klinsy has internationalized the roster with players who have American lineage but European soccer backgrounds, which has typically reaped rewards, but has lead a crop of now-established players to ask, “Donovan who?”

5. The Julian Green Conspiracy

This will be one of those things that won’t be revealed until peoples’ careers have ended, if it ever will be at all. But following Green’s decision to switch his allegiance from the Germans to the Americans earlier this year, people began asking what Klinsmann promised the talented player to cause him to start representing the U.S. Theories abounded that Klinsmann promised Green a World Cup roster spot in exchange for his commitment. After one very average performance during a friendly with Mexico, people decided Green’s big year would be 2018, when he’d have more national and first-team club appearances under his belt.

Well, Green made this year’s roster, despite his performance against Mexico and only playing single-digit minutes for the Bayern Munich first team thus far. Then again, another young player who had played scant minutes for a German giant also did just fine in his World Cup debut. That player? Twenty-year-old Landon Donovan at the 2002 World Cup.

Join The Discussion

I don’t know man just so many emotions when I saw this. I can’t understand it fully. These reasons make sense but not strong enough to leave him off the team. I’ve had countless amounts of conversations with my friends in the past months about the projected starting lineup and it never even crossed any of our minds that Landon wouldn’t be there (in the starting lineup). Now he doesn’t make the team and I see people saying “Oh yeah I could see that, it makes sense.” FUCK THAT!

I like Klinsmann and want to trust him but I truly don’t think he understands. Donovan is an American soccer HERO. He could’ve used him as a sub and for leadership. But hey I still believe just hope Klinsmann knows the shit storm coming his way if the team doesn’t perform. Because you know what everyone is going to talk about if they don’t.

JK is taking a big risk leaving out EJ and Landon. He is gonna look either like a genius or a mad man when the world cup is over.
Jozy has a great record for the national team,even though he struggled in Sunderland, and that is why he deserves to be in the final 23.

Eddie Johnson has looked like crap for DC United all season and was lucky to score last week against Montreal after having a pretty poor game. I’d rather have Altidore, who has been playing and practicing with a much higher level of competition at Sunderland all season, than EJ

People need to drop the HERO thingy. that whole hero thing is the reason why england is so unaccomplished too. nah man, coaches and managers must pick players who they see that fit there philosophy and can perform their game plans close to perfect

what? US soccer is unaccomplished because of the whole hero thing? Explain…England isn’t dumb enough to leave Gerrard off their team. Don’t know how you can compare England and US past teams. England has world class players all over the field.

And yeah Dempsey is gonna be 35 or 36 next world cup thanks for the heads up!

sometimes that whole hero shit, coaches keep using players WERE great and sometimes its time to move on and help develop the younger promising talent. keeping that old talent around, sometimes it just isnt good for the young players. England’s world class hasnt won anything

I understand US has to develop talent but this is world cup it’s about winning now. If you can confidently say all 23 of those players will help US win in world more than donovan would than so be it but I think that’s crazy.

I’m not so sure he can help you win now, he barely helped the B team win the gold cup. I can’t lie, i am surprised that he couldnt make the bench (I knew he wouldnt make the starting 11), but everyone knows there is some sort of player/coach tension between the 2.

I’m a casual fan at best so these reasons listed work pretty good for me. Landon is like Jordan with the Wizards–not horrid, but best days clearly behind him. Conversely, he puts butts in seats and he still has a great game or two in him.

As for the rest, part of what’s disappointed me about both Men’s & Women’s US Soccer the last 20 years is the attrocious job done in developing a pipeline of truly great talent like other (largely smaller) countries have.

I think that’s still an issue now… we’ve got some good players at certain positions, but developing really great OMG-level players? Nah. So part of the Landon Drama is he’s the only US soccer player fans have connected with since maybe Mia Hamm or Alexi Lalas 10 years go.

The US struggles with developing talent because there are so many other sports that athletic kids can play growing up. If LeBron or any other NBA/NFL/MLB player grew up in another country and had soccer be the only sport they played growing up the US would develop a lot more talent

First off, its great to see soccer get discussed on my favorite site, particularly US Soccer! Landon is a legend, and its really hard to think he wouldn’t have a role, especially as an attacking option off the bench.

Klinsmann is a coach that REALLY emphasizes training and has a complex system of evaluating players. He is also fearless when it comes to making a decision like this, if you look at his managing past. I believe that Donovan never got on board with Klinsmann’s system, and that Klinsmann has been preparing for the post Landon-era longer than thought.

Personally, I think Klinsmann took the “my way or highway” approach too hard. You need all 23 players (except the 3rd goalie) to be ready to contribute, and I am not comfortable having Julian Green thrown into that situation yet when we have a Landon Donovan who has proven himself at this level.

As someone who follows US Soccer pretty closely, I really don’t understand this move. It has the potential to really distract the team by forcing everyone to answer questions about Landons absence for the next couple weeks instead of focusing on the task at hand. Clearly, Landon is not the player he once was, but he still had a helluva Gold Cup and played well in WC qualifying. If anything the team would benefit from him coming off the bench for 20-30 min a game, which I think is what most people thought was going to happen.

All I can think about is I’m really glad that the US isn’t France or one of those prissy European countries who would revolt against the coach in a situation like this. Everyone on the squad will hopefully come together and do their thing in Brazil without any drama.

Also, shoutout to TSS for the soccer article. Keep em coming for the WC